


the tides and changing winds

by raffinit



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Tess Doesn't Die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 18:19:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14218986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raffinit/pseuds/raffinit
Summary: Tess sometimes forgets what it's like to be human.





	the tides and changing winds

There are mornings when she wakes with a scream caught in her chest and her heart lodged in her throat. Mornings when images of fire and blood and screaming men and women and children all cluster behind her eyes, gunfire and the smell of rotting flesh and unholy animal sounds coming from mangled throats. She wakes with her fingers nearly cutting holes into the ratty sheets, with sweat cold and stifling on her skin. 

In these dreams, she remembers the end the most - it’s always the same. Always. 

There’s Boston, the Capitol Building, and instead of her neck throbbing and angry and red, it’s Joel’s. It’s her and Ellie in the cast of sunlight beaming through the broken walls as she refuses to leave him; begs him to let her stay and fight even as the girl’s tugging at her arm and pleading for them to go. It’s him with black veins of the infection spreading over his face, engulfing the whites of his eyes, the bright hazel turned inky black as he bares white teeth and lunges for her with hands curled like claws. 

Other times it’s the hospital. Kneeling in an operating room surrounded by blood; clutching to Ellie’s dead body and screaming when Marlene pulls the trigger. Sometimes it’s in the dead of winter, and her hands are wet with blood and Joel is trying not to choke on his own breath as he bleeds red and dark over the white snow. 

On the rare occasion, on the worst nights - it’s David.

Those dreams, she’s glad she doesn’t remember. That her mind shuts off and blocks out the sick and twisted things it could conjure up, the smell of stale blood and rotting flesh together with the sickly sweet stench of his breath on her cheek. 

Sometimes Joel wakes her from these nightmares. With warm and steady hands that hold her, with low words or silence when she feels like she could crawl out of her skin. The weight of his presence beside her, against her, sometimes holding her pinned against his chest, hands bound in his to stop her from hurting anyone. Kisses in her hair and whispers low murmuring words until she can breathe again. 

Other times, like today, she looks over on the bed and sees him asleep still. Laid on his back, open and exposed, one arm trapped beneath her pillow. Snoring in that deep thrum that tells her this is a rare night of deep slumber, when exhaustion from tending to trouble around town gets into his bones. 

Even so deep in rest, his hand is anchored firmly in her space. Reaching out to her even in the depths of dreaming. 

Tess tries to takes a breath but it comes out in shattered gasps. Tries to reach out and wipe the build of sweat on her brow and can’t hardly keep her fingers steady long enough to do it. The morning light is filtering through the thin sheer curtains, spilling over the bed, and the smell of dew on the grass and leaves outside flits in through the crack of the open window, but she feels the bile building up in her throat, the bitterness and saliva building in her mouth.

She presses into Joel’s body like a child, tucks her face into the damp warmth of his neck and tries not to let the whimper escape her.

Instantly he’s awake, muscles locking tight under her as his breath hitches. His arms shift slowly, groping for her body, settling around her trembling shoulders and grasping her forearm. 

Sleep makes his voice rough and low. “Hey.”

Her fingers press divots into his skin. She doesn’t trust herself to say anything, so she doesn’t. Only sinks her short nails into his chest and curls her fist into his shirt and tries to make him understand.

His fingers stroke over her shoulder gently, reaching up to tangle into her hair. “‘s okay,” he murmurs, rolling over until she's caged in the warmth of his arms. “You're alright.” He cradles her to him almost tenderly, lets her press her face into his chest and burrow into the heat of him; the familiar weight and smell and encompassing anchor of him. 

His fingers swirl gently over the curve of her shoulder, tracing around the slightly damp tendrils of hair against her skin. He brushes them off her neck, spreads her hair over the lumpy pillow, and Tess shudders at the rush of cool air against her exposed skin. It reminds her of winter, and it makes her press her face harder into his chest.

He smells like stale sweat and musty sheets, but she can feel the diamond of his ribcage swelling with every breathe; the steady beat of his heart against her palm. She swallows a breath, and it comes out like a miserable hiccup.

“Shh.” He kisses her hair gently, the bristle of his beard scraping against her forehead. “‘m right here, Tessa.”

A familiar rush of shame washes over her. Shame and anger converging - she should have her shit together by now. After everything they’ve been through to get here; they’re  _ safe  _ now, safer than they ever were in the Zone. Life was shit in the Quarantine Zone, but at least the dreams hadn’t been so bad back then. There was hardly ever time to dream, hardly ever any strength left in her aching bones by the end of the night to do anything but sleep and sleep hard. Survival had been priority then.

It’s ironic, she thinks, that in the most idle and content they’ve been - here is where the demons come the closest.

“You wanna talk about it?” It’s gentle, tentative; she’s heard him sound the same when Ellie wakes screaming like this too. 

She shifts her head against his chest, pushes her nose into his neck and sighs. Her words come out half-swallowed by his skin. “No.”

He holds her closer, dips his head down to rest his chin on top of her head. “Okay.” He doesn’t press her for more, doesn’t say anything else. As the sun slowly rises outside, he plays with her hair and traces patterns over her skin until the tremor in her bones starts to fade. 

At some point in time, she finds the strength to speak without the quiver in her voice. “It happens more now.”

Joel heaves a quiet sigh, low and long. “I know.”

“It shouldn’t.”

His fingers curl a strand of hair behind her ear. Traces the line of her jaw and rests where he feels her teeth gritted together. “Ain’t somethin’ we can help, sweetheart.”

She sighs against him, fingers curling as the frustration builds under her skin. It’s something she  _ can  _ help - she should have a better handle on her shit by now. All those years, all those moments of handling her shit, handling everyone else’s shit, and for what? She wasn’t the one bitten, wasn’t the one run through by a damn rebar. She was the one who got them through all of that mess; the one who made sure they didn’t freeze to death or starve. 

She was the one who  _ took care of them _ . 

And yet.

She feels a build of tears burning behind her eyelids, and Tess squeezes her eyes shut tight to keep them from wetting his skin. “Things are  _ good  _ here.” A rush of anger goes through her, and it shows in her words. Anger, vehemence, a wild rush of frenzy all at once, because it’s  _ true _ . “Things are  _ good _ , better than we’ve ever had and --”

Her voice gives way into a fissuring crack, and Tess bites down hard on her lip at the betrayal. She bites down hard enough to taste blood, and the rust of it is a calm familiarity on her tongue.

She almost misses the taste.

“‘s only human,” Joel tells her patiently. His hand reaches to cup her jaw, and Tess finds her head tilted backwards enough for him to kiss her brow tenderly. “ _ You _ ’re only human.”

She chokes back the tears and tastes them all the way down her throat. It’s a taste she knows well, but she hates it all the same.  _ Maybe things are  _ **_too_ ** _ good; that’s why it’s all coming back.  _ It sits on the tip of her tongue, but she bites it back with the tears.  _ Maybe I’m just not meant for good things. Good things don’t happen to people like me _ .

Another flood of shame washes through her at the thought. She’s not the only one suffering; Ellie still wakes at night, still sometimes comes knocking on their door sniffling with eyes rimmed dark and haunted with memories of things no child should know. There are still nights when Joel wakes with a gasp or a shout and wild fear in his eyes. 

They all suffer - why does she get to wallow?

Joel makes a low sound in his throat, as if he knows. Somehow he always knows. “Tessa.” There’s always a rush of something warm and blooming in her chest when he says her name like that; like he has all of the sunshine and the summer rain in two syllables.

It puts an awful twisting ache in the burrows of her ribcage. 

“‘s not wrong to feel things,” he murmurs. “Ain’t a sin to feel like the world’s out to get ya. Hell - sure feels like it most days, don’t it?” He squeezes her shoulders; scrapes his nails against her jaw soothingly. He lets his free hand come up to rest over hers, spread out and clutching so tight to his shirt that her knuckles curl white. “It’s okay to cry sometimes.”

Their fingers twine together over his chest, and he pulls her close until their hands can feel the thrum of each other’s hearts between them.

She shakes her head roughly, but still the tears squeeze out and blaze over her skin so hot she feels the burn of them long after. “‘m f-fucked up.”

“So ‘m I,” he replies solemnly. “We all are. One way or another.”

Her breaths start to stutter in her chest, and Tess buries her face into his neck when the sobs come through in harsh bursts, half smothered in her throat and half wrenched from her lungs. She doesn’t know how long she cries, or how long it takes for it to stop. By the end of it her eyes feel like they could be welded shut, snot and tears smeared against clammy skin as Joel patiently brushes her hair back and wipes the tear tracks with his thumb.

When her nose is stuffed and her mouth is dry from keeping up with her breathing, the tears run dry enough. A stray drop runs its path down her face, and Tess tastes the bitter salt of it on the edge of her lip. 

Joel’s thumb swipes it away a moment later. 

“Better?” he asks softly.

She takes it a shuddering, snuffling breath. She probably looks as disgusting as she feels, but still Joel kisses her cheek and brow, her lips. 

She sighs against his mouth, reaching up to feel the coarse bristle of his beard against her palm, to touch the muscle and heat and blood pulsing under his skin. “I will be,” she says. It’s all she can say.

_ We’re all getting better, aren’t we? At the very least, we’re getting better at pretending. _

“We’ll get better together,” Joel says steadily. “Yeah? You, me, Ellie.” His arm comes down to wrap around her narrow waist, to splay his fingers warmly over the aching cage of her chest. “All of us, together.”


End file.
